Tag: alternative thinking

A new paper published by the Intergenerational Foundation this week states that student tuition fees are economically inefficient. The press release for the paper states:

A new paper published today challenges the current funding system in higher education, calling it “economically inefficient”. In the paper, Dr Kevin Albertson, Professor of Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University, points out that the public benefits of a young person’s getting a higher education qualification more than outweigh the costs, according to the government’s published figures.

The paper uses an alternative way of thinking about the economics and is a very good example of how creative or alternative thinking can be used to solve problems and change the status quo. In a nutshell, tuition fees should be paid by the government as they reap the economic benefit. Read the full press release to find out more.

Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino firmly believes that being a rebel with a cause will boost your career and enrich you personally.

The professor conducted a study of more than 1000 employees. He found that less than 10% worked at companies that encouraged challenging the status quo. According to her “when this happens, workers and their organisations both pay a price”. The price is decreased engagement, productivity and innovation.

Apparently the pressure to conform also increases as people progress in their careers. She states that sheep are easier to manage than wolves. A study on peer pressure by psychologist Solomon Asch found that 75% of people will pick an answer they know is wrong simply in order to fit in.

The professor believes that if we adopt constructive nonconformism and be authentic then this will benefit the organisation that you work for. In addition others respond positively to those who dare to be genuine and authentic. In an assessment of entrepreneurs at pitch contests, those who seemed sincere were three times more likely to win than those who were not authentic.

Professor Gino has 3 tips for us:

Challenge your own assumptions first

Master the past

Start small

If you have any questions regarding being a rebel then please get in touch.

Mood Hoovers! Do you have some of those negative people in your business who just suck the life out of you? If you are self employed maybe you are surrounded by some. What do you do about them?

I spent some time talking to individuals who provide coaching and their take on it was to simply ignore these people. This could work if you work on your own and can make that choice but what about those people who work in organisations?

Negativity, like positivity is a resource that can be used so why ignore or waste it? Lets actively make use of it. But how?

There are a number of creative or alternative techniques that can be used to harness negative energy which I will not go into here, however the fundamental principle is the same. Even the most positive of us have a negative streak so let s first of all use this to create something. Maybe it is a whole heap of ideas or a story. As long as there is some sort of mapping between our negative output and something positive in the real world.

So why is this good? First of all, you will get a lot of output! Secondly when we generate ideas we find it easy to judge them. You will have noticed many comments such as ‘that won’t work’ or ‘we can’t afford that’. If what you are producing is in fact negative, the mood hoovers will find it very difficult to judge!

Whether at home or at work, we tend to focus on things around us that are changing, or that are connected to our own actions, because that is where much of the information that matters to us tends to be located. Life is much simpler if we ﬁlter out things that appear to be unchanging or irrelevant. Occasionally we must explore the givens.

But when the ‘stable, irrelevant background’ contains important information, this simpliﬁcation breaks down. Many ‘problems’ become ‘problematic’ because the background contained potentially important information we did not notice until it was too late.

Most, if not all of us have either a ﬁxed way of doing things or a ﬁxed way of thinking about things. These ﬁxed patterns are known as mindsets and they can severely limit our actions in both business and private life. Imagine that you take the same route each day when you walk to your place of work. Each day you buy the same newspaper and the same sandwich for lunch. Over time you begin to get a little fed up with your choice of sandwich and the newspaper does not seem to engage you as it once did.

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